Three things were done on the day of atonement (Lev. 16). Blood was put on the mercy seat, representing Christ gone into heaven, the ground on which we can preach to all the world. That was connected with Jehovah's lot. His death glorified God, whether one or a thousand are saved.
All was in utter confusion by sin. What kind of world is this? Where is righteousness? Where is love? What folly there is in infidelity! How can men solve the riddle of all the misery we see around without God? Where is the goodness of God to be seen? How can it be attempted to be explained without Christ? Indifference to sin is not love. Men try to persuade themselves God will be indifferent to sin. When I see God's judgment for sin on Christ, I get at the center of God's heart—righteousness is satisfied, and, what is more, God can rest in His love. And if you come as a sinner to God, and rest in Christ, it is a matter of the glory of God to see you there because of the blood.
"The heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices."
Satan and his angels are there, and cleansing is needed. This purging is not remission. God must have His house cleansed as well as His people made righteous (compare Col. 1).
On the people's lot, the scapegoat, the particular sins of the people were confessed. This was substitution (v. 26). And there is perpetual value in the sacrifice. He once suffered. This suffering was not the mere fact of death. The agony of His soul when He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" was far deeper than the suffering of the separation of soul and body. Death was looked at as the wages of sin; God's wrath was poured out on Him against the sin. (Death to Christ was not merely going out of the body into paradise.) This never can be done again. He has gone in once into the holy place. If He went in often, He must have suffered often. "But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down." This does not mean forever and ever, but unremittingly He is sitting at the right hand of God. I can never stand in the presence of God but in the sacrifice of Christ, and that is never remitted. He has put sin away; why should He suffer again? He has put it away according to the glory of God. "Once in the end of the world hath He appeared." This may appear strange, seeing nearly as much of the world's history has gone on since as before Christ's coming; but it does not mean chronologically, but the closing in of the ages.
Up to that time God had been trying men as living men in the world. That is ended—man is not alive now (I speak of man morally, as judged by God)—therefore it is said to the Colossians, "Why, as though living in the world?" Man has been tried as to life, and now the fig tree is cut down. Did it bear fruit? No! and it was cut down. The fig tree represented the Jewish nation, in whom God made trial of men under the best circumstances. "What could have been done more to My vineyard?" (Isa. 5:44What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? (Isaiah 5:4)). Christ came looking for fruit from the fig tree, and, finding none, He said, Cut it down; let no fruit grow on thee forever.
The "time for figs" was not yet—the fruit bearing time was not come. God, as it were, said, "They will reverence My Son." No! then there is no fruit from man forever. Man, looked at as in flesh, is under the sentence of death. "When we were yet without strength... Christ died for the ungodly." Man is not only ungodly, but without power to get out of that state. Christ must close the history of the old man, by bearing the sin, and must bring in a new thing. Then God makes a feast and invites to the supper, when they not only refuse the Son, but they refuse the supper.
Man has been fully tried; and now, if there is to be blessing, it must not be on the ground of responsibility, but wholly of grace, by the last Adam. (Rom. 5.) If I believe this, I find out the truth about the old man little by little. Perhaps at first we only see ()Toss sins. "But what is to be done when I find I can do nothing?" you ask. Own you are undone. "In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing."
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Death is like the policeman to bring us up to the judgment. Then (v. 28), we have the counterpart of this in grace. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him," all believers, "shall He appear.. without sin." What does that mean? As to His own Person, He was without sin the first time; but now the same One comes back—what for? To deal about the sins? No! That He has done the first time; and now, apart from that entirely, He comes to receive them to Himself. For those who trust in His first coming, and look for His second, there is nothing but blessing. There is a work done in us to make us sharers in that which has been done outside us; but this is the question of the work done for us, outside of ourselves altogether. What had I to do with the cross of Christ? The hatred that killed Him, and the sins that He bore, are all that sinners had to do with it. Therefore there can never come a shade upon the love of God in the cross of Christ. It is perfect.